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Title: The Mexican War, 1846-1848 (Essential Histories) by Douglas V. Meed ISBN: 0-415-96840-2 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $45.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 2 (1 review)
Rating: 2
Summary: A Sharp Turn Toward Irrelevance
Comment: The new Osprey Essential Histories series on the Mexican War starts out fairly well, but falters mid-way through its narrative of the conflict and never regains its footing. Although the author's writing style and background are journalistic, he does succeed in delivering the essential elements that brought the conflict about, but his touch is less sure in dealing with the war itself. If one desires a "cliff notes" volume on the Mexican War, this is it. However, for a series that purports to engender a "deeper understanding of war," this volume fails to deliver.
The Mexican War begins with an 11-page section that lays out the background of the war. The author does make a good point in citing Mexican intransigence and American land-greed as the proximate causes of the war; he notes, "they [the Mexicans] allowed their pride to cloud their judgment of potential American military strength. The Mexican government therefore refused to negotiate..." Nature abhors a vacuum, as is said, and the vast open, sparsely populated Mexican northern territories were a great temptation to an expanding American republic. The section on opposing sides is woefully inadequate, with the equivalent of only three pages on the subject. While the author depicts the essential conditions of each country's military forces in cultural terms, he fails to provide much in the way of specifics. An order of battle for at least the two main campaigns would have been nice, but the omission of military details quickly reveals this as a watered-down account. The next section covers the actual outbreak of war on the Rio Grande and is fairly accurate. The bulk of the military campaigns are covered in the 30-page middle section. Aside from the lack of any order of battle type information or even specifics about how much cavalry or artillery each side had in various battles, the reader should note how few maps are used to support the text. The critical battles around Mexico City are particularly poorly supported by the few generalized maps. A 3-page section, entitled "portrait of a soldier," is interesting in its discussion of the wartime career of one Lieutenant Sam Grant (later U S Grant).
Unfortunately, the Mexican War makes a sharp turn off into irrelevance in a long-winded section entitled, "the world around the war," which was intended to demonstrate the progress being made elsewhere in the world in comparison to the stagnation in Mexico. This section covers an incredible array of non-issues for the Mexican War: the trapped Donner Party, the Mormons, the Revolution of 1848 in Europe, Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, Charles Darwin, etc. The author compounds this shot-gun approach to history with a follow-up section intended to give a portrait of a civilian (who had no direct involvement in the war), spending time detailing the birth of each of her children. I thought this book was supposed to be about the Mexican War? The author finally gets back to the climax of the war and the resulting peace treaty. The incredible amount of space devoted to items totally unrelated to the conflict - fully 15% of the book - is inexcusable. In Osprey volumes there is no doubt that size constraints limit the amount of detail that could be included, but when space is flagrantly wasted the format should not be used as an excuse. This author should have included more detail on the war, on military leaders, on casualties rather than discussing nonsense like French ballet. History requires focus to be intelligible.
One major point that the author neglects in favor of above-mentioned nonsense is the uniqueness of Scott's Mexico City expedition. This expedition was one of the best armies that the United States ever fielded: primarily regular in composition, with both troops and officers having recent combat experience. Also, Scott's march on Mexico City required him to virtually sever his line of communication to the sea, which has only happened twice in US military history that a commander has voluntarily severed his supply lines (the other occasion was Sherman's March to the Sea). Scott was one of the best American battlefield generals ever - the author should have made some mention of his exceptional victories in 1814 rather than just focusing on side issues like Scott's political problems. Readers desiring a short history of the Mexican War will get that in these pages, but only that.
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Title: The War of 1812 by Carl Benn ISBN: 1841764663 Publisher: Osprey Publishing (UK) Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The American Revolution 1774-1783 by Daniel Marston ISBN: 1841763438 Publisher: Osprey Publishing (UK) Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The French-Indian War 1754-1760 by Daniel Marston ISBN: 1841764566 Publisher: Osprey Publishing (UK) Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Seven Years' War (Essential Histories, No 6) by Daniel Marston ISBN: 1841761915 Publisher: Osprey Publishing (UK) Pub. Date: 01 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The War of the Roses: 1455-1485 (Essential Histories) by Michael Hicks ISBN: 1841764914 Publisher: Osprey Publishing (UK) Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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